President Obama Seeks 35% Boost In Cybersecurity Funding

President Barack Obama is seeking a 35 percent increase in cybersecurity funding in his 2017 fiscal year budget plan. The President hopes to boost the capability of the federal government to defend itself against cyberattacks. The proposal seeks $19 billion for cyber security across the U.S. government, an increase of $5 billion over this year, according to senior administration officials cited by Reuters. This is all part of President Obamas new Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP), a long-overdue, comprehensive approach to keeping our countrys digital secrets safe.

$3.1 billion is ear marked for technology modernization at various federal agencies. This could be good news for PC makers as the government will be updating their systems! The US government still heavily relies on Windows XP, which Microsoft stopposed officially supporting in April 2014. The US Navy paid $9.1 million last year to continue to receive security patches from Microsoft due to using obsolete Operating Systems.

The plan that will be released later today will need to pass the Republican-controller congress to get approval.